Luang Prabang: Haunted by the spirit of Sesame Street, probably

We got to Luang Prabang at around 6AM.  I shared some a tuk tuk ride to the center of town with some other backpackers and then we searched out a hostel together.  It was kind of early so not all the hostels had people there, but we were kinda led by this British-French girl who kept saying you knew of a "good place" because she was very particular about having a single room at a good price.  I wasn't motivated too much by the promise of saving a few extra bucks, so I took a room for 100,000 kip, or about 12 dollars.  The motivated girl did find a room for 50,000 kip, but it sounded a bit less comfortable, with smelly shared bathrooms and walls that don't go all the way to the ceiling.  In other words, it was a dorm room with pre-walls between the beds.

I met up with Cristina in the early afternoon for a late breakfast.  Then we went and booked a tour for the following day--a biking, kayaking, elephant riding fantastic voyage.  Next we ambled around for the bit and were soon drawn into a temple that had some ridiculous silver dragon railing that spoke "Big Trouble and Little China" to me.  The coolest part of the temple were these paintings of stories, in a series of panels, like a comic.  We couldn't read the text so we could only craft a story from the pictures.  Based on said pictures, the story was wild, exotic, and packed with head severings.  Cristina, being much more knowledgeable of Bhuddism than I, explained some of the strict rules that monks have to follow, such as being unable to touch women, which led to a reflection of her childhood when she would chase after them and try to make them touch her.   She was able to restrain herself this time and refrain from running after the monks.  I can't belp but think of Ang from Avatar when I see a monk now.

It was hot so we popped into the first indoor cafe we found.  It was another Joma--just like the one in Vientiane and it also had free wifi, so we got some drinks and I got online to email Jo and Luke and tell them where I was, but before I could even boot up my computer, I looked up and saw Jo standing in line at the counter!  This was my 3rd time meeting up with Jo and Luke (eventually I would see Luke);  First Xi'an, then Hong Kong, and now Luang Prabang.  We sat there for a bit and chatted, me sharing stories of Vietnam and Jo sharing about Thailand and Cristina, about her 4 days of non stop bus rides.  Luke had food poisoning again and was back in their room.  The last time I saw them they were both just getting over food poisoning and then I suddenly had it.  I hoped the same wasn't going to be the case on this encounter.  We left and tried to get Luke out of bed but were unable, so the three of us walked around the town for a bit then found a little Palace, or maybe a museum--that perhaps used to be a palace.  We couldn't bring in our cameras in the main building, but they gave us free locker storage for them.

Finally in the evening Luke had enough energy to come out, so we all went to dinner together.  Not being that picky, but incredibly hungry, we chose something reasonably touristy.   I ordered 2 dishes and got served both first.  The kitchens cruel way of making me look like some super glutton--maybe they knew of Galactus.  While we were eating a little kitty came up to our table and managed to crawl into my open backpack and take a nap.  After dinner we had some beer and crepes on the street, then went to bed.